Your Role in Getting 3,000 People Hired
You might not think that, in our region, jobs sit unfilled.
On a recent game day, 200 stadium jobs were available. 140 were filled. 60 more people could have been employed that day. What’s the deal?
For many people, the barriers to employment are just clean clothes, the right shoes or work boots, a Food Handler permit, or basic transportation. That’s it. But if you’re homeless, those things, small as they are, aren’t easy to come by.
They are so close to a job,
one that could lead them off the streets and toward stability.
Your Help = This Great New Program Called Jobs Connect
Jobs Connect is a new United Way of King County program to get people who are homeless back to work and back on their feet. To get those barriers out of the way. In essence, Jobs Connect is taking on the crisis of homelessness in a big—but simple—way.
For you visuals out there, here’s a picture of how this works:
Each morning, Roland boards the official Jobs Connect van, which takes him from wherever he slept that night to the Belltown Millionair Club Charity, United Way’s partner. There he eats a good breakfast and grabs a sack lunch to go before checking into his job with the Metropolitan Improvement District. After work, he returns to the Millionair Club to take a shower and do his laundry.
He’s got a paycheck, a routine—and bright future. Read Roland’s full story here.
That’s Jobs Connect, helping people work as part of our goal of reducing the number of unsheltered people in King County by 50%.
Jobs Connect started in March, stemming from the vision of a donor like you.
“Work can be a path out of homelessness; I’m investing in Jobs Connect because I want to help connect people to that path.” said Dave Grant, a United Way donor whose idea of a jobs-homelessness partnership sparked Jobs Connect.
In Phase 1, Roland and a lot of others were connected to temporary jobs that provide a paycheck. Phase 2 is now and in it we want to connect 3,000 people with solid work leads. That’s finding those unfilled jobs, finding the people who need work and want to work, and making the golden connection. We’re also aiming to build more shower and laundry facilities, buy more lockers for storage of personal items, and bring on more housing case managers. Because it’s all about making the employment stick.
Dive into Jobs Connect on our website and check out Crosscut’s coverage of it too. It’s great work changing lives, thanks to you.
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